Posts tagged with "George Lucas":

Back in San Francisco in early 2014, the Presidio Trust rejected revised plans for three different cultural space options on an 8-acre site. One idea was a proposal for George Lucas’s Museum of Narrative Art in The Presidio, a 1,500-acre park in northern San Francisco. He then abandoned his San Francisco plans to build a museum to house his cinema, digital, and narrative art collections.
He went to Chicago, where his wife grew up. But the proposed Chicago site has faced lengthy disputes. Nonprofits are worried that his 300,000-square-foot museum on land near Burnham Harbor would set a new precedent for private lakefront development on land that is protected for public use. The proposed site is currently a Chicago Bears' football parking lot. The city intends to lease the land for 99 years at a cost of only ten dollars. Beijing–based firm MAD Architects was tapped for the $700 million project that has been mired in legal disputes for over a year.
Now, George Lucas may have another option: reconsider the Bay area. According to the San Francisco Business Times, the City of Oakland is trying to get his attention. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's spokeswoman, Erica Terry Derryck, told the Business Times: “If plans for a museum in Chicago do not come to fruition, we’d be thrilled to explore the possibility of this exciting project coming to life in Oakland.” So far, we wait until mid-April, when federal judge John W. Darrah comes to a decision on whether construction on the Chicago project can start.

The saga of the MAD Architects–designed Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts (LMNA) continues as a federal judge denies the City of Chicago’s motion to allow construction to begin.
Judge John W. Darrah has decided to maintain the injunction which is delaying the start of construction of the $400 million museum on Chicago’s lakefront while there is still a case against the project.
His decision came a day after city lawyers filed a motion to allow the start of construction and expedite the case brought by Friends of the Parks. Earlier this month Judge Darrah agreed to allow the case to move forward after the city presented a motion to completely dismiss it.
This latest decision is being seen as a sign that the case is one step closer to going to trial.
The lawyers for the City of Chicago argue that the court’s decision to hear the case “in no way establishes that they are entitled to the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction.” The city also noted in the motion that it believed that the case was not a matter for a federal court to hear in the first place, as it is a city and state-law issue.
The City also argues that the preliminary injunction was instituted before the Chicago Park District voted to approve the lease for the land, the Chicago Plan Commission voted to approve the project, and before the City Council approved the amendment to change zoning for the site. Now that the project has been approved by all the necessary city offices, the City wants the injunction lifted, allowing for the project to move forward while the case is settled.
The case brought by Friends of the Parks was filed in November 2014. It claims that the negotiations between the Parks District and the Lucas Museum regarding the use of the public land would violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, was ultra vires (beyond their legal power) under Illinois law, and violated the Illinois Public Trust Doctrine.
The lakefront has long been the site of discussion and litigation concerning its use and public access. Most notably stated by Daniel Burnham in regards to his 1909 Plan of the City, “First in importance is the shore of Lake Michigan. It should be treated as park space to the greatest possible extent. The lakefront by right belongs to the people… not a foot of its shores should be appropriated to the exclusion of the people.”
Also in the City motion was a warning that Chicago was at risk of losing the museum to another city. Similar issues concerning the use of park land were the initial reason for the museum leaving San Francisco for Chicago.
The motion points out, “The preliminary injunction thus threatens the very public interest it is bound to protect: the loss of the LMNA would deprive the City of a world-class museum and all the attendant educational, cultural, and economic benefits, as well as depriving the City of a more beneficial use for the museum site than the current asphalt parking lot.” The “current asphalt parking lot” refers to the surface lot used for the Chicago Bears’s Soldier Field football stadium on the site.
Judge Darrah stated that he would have a decision regarding lifting the injunction so that construction could start by mid-April.
Beijing-based MAD Architects is working with architect of record VOA Studio from Chicago, and Studio Gang Architects and SCAPE/Landscape Architects for the landscape design.

Just two weeks after the city of Chicago gave the go ahead for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to procure a 99 year lease on the Chicago Lakefront from the Chicago Park District, a federal court has indicated that it will not give a decision until February regarding a case brought by Friends of the Parks against the City.
In a hearing to determine whether the Friends of the Park would be allowed to pursue their lawsuit, Federal Judge John W. Darrah, has given the park watchdog group until December 3th to address the cities motion to dismiss the case. If Judge Darrah allows the lawsuit to go forward, it will only be the beginning of what may become a protracted legal battle over the MAD Designed museum. Until this decision, construction was planned to begin as early as spring of 2016.
Friends of the Parks claim the Chicago Park District does not have the right to lease lakefront land to the Lucas Museum based Illinois’ public trust doctrine. That doctrine states, though vaguely, that land along Lake Michigan must be protected for public use. This has often been interpreted that no private business, or in some cases any construction, should happen along the lakefront.

The architectural concept for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art explores the relationship between nature and the urban environment. Inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, the design integrates the natural beauty of the park and Lake Michigan with the powerful man-made architecture of Chicago. The design furthers the Museum’s mission to be a place of education, culture, and inspiration.

MAD principal Ma Yansong also offers his thoughts on the project in a video posted to Vimeo and embedded on the website:
“I think the green space, the public park, is a great asset for Chicago and I want our building [to] blend into this environment,” he said in the video. The setting just south of Chicago's downtown Loop district will provide a unique context, Ma said. “You will see the building as a landscape in front of all these modern skyscrapers.”
He described the building's form as “very horizontal, undulating, soft surface merging with [the] existing landscape,” and referenced a public atrium that he called an “urban living room.” That room, and much of the building, will reach out to the sky and surrounding landscape, said Ma. “We want to bring this idea of connecting sky and the land to the project. Because all the space around the museum is about where you touch the land. So the land is very important to us.”
The “floating” disc atop the building will feature an observation deck, offering 360-degree views of the surrounding area, including Lake Michigan.
Studio Gang “will design the landscape and create a bridge to connect The Lucas Museum to Northerly Island,” according to the project's website. Northerly Island is currently the subject of a massive makeover by Gang that aims to turn the southern portion of the 91-acre peninsula into an ecological park.
The website says a live webcam will broadcast the project's construction.
The museum's fanciful design is unlikely to cool tensions with the group Friends of the Parks, who have challenged the museum development under Chicago's 1973 Lakefront Protection Ordinance. A formal presentation to the city's plan commission and council is expected next year, but opposition to this private development of lakefront land is likely to continue—especially now that it has a face.

George Lucas is making architectural waves again. And it has nothing to do with a museum. In 2012 AN reported that Lucas had torn down 3389 Padaro Lane, a 1981 Modernist masterpiece on the beach by sculptor and architect Sherrill Broudy in Carpinteria, just east of Santa Barbara. Now he's finished the replacement—designed by Appleton & Associates. And let's just say it's less of a masterpiece.
Featuring colonial detailing and a wrap around porch, it looks like it would be more at home on the East Coast than on the West. Los Angeles architect Tom Marble (who previously wrote about the house for AN) described Lucas's new abode as "Cape Cod Light, an invasive non-native systematically destroying a strain of modernism that evolved in this part of Carpenteria."
Built in 1981, 3389 Padaro—known in the area as the best house on the beach—was one of just a few buildings designed by Broudy, who had initially worked as a sculptor. That background allowed him to create wood and copper detailing that gave the compound a warm, and somewhat Asian aesthetic. His excellent eye extended throughout the site, where he laid out a gym, an art studio, and a lap pool in such a way as to create a tropical oasis.
Appleton has not yet posted the home to its web site, which is unusual since it's shared homes by David Zucker, Mitch Glazer, Phil Gersh, and other Hollywood A-listers. Lucas is busy talking with much more contemporary-style architects for his Chicago endeavor, including MAD and Jeanne Gang.

A short time from now in a neighborhood not far, far away… filmmaker extraordinaire George Lucas may land his art and film museum in Chicago. The move comes after the filmmaker's bid to build the museum in San Francisco fell through last year.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel formed a task force last week, directing a dozen civic leaders to scout out, as the Sun-Times summarized, “a site ‘accessible’ to all Chicago neighborhoods that’s large enough to host a museum ‘comparable to other major cultural institutions,’ but does not ‘require taxpayer dollars.’”
The task force is co-chaired by businessmen Gillian Darlow and Kurt Summers. Emanuel gave the group until mid-May to find a homebase for the Star Wars creator, who last year married Mellody Hobson, president of the Chicago investment firm Ariel.
Lucas now lives in Chicago part-time, but Lucasfilm Ltd. and special effects company Industrial Light & Magic are still based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lucas had originally scoped out a spot in the Presidio, but was rejected by the Presidio trust—the nonprofit that oversees the federally owned land at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Lucas' was one of three proposals for The Presidio's 8-acre mid-Crissy Field site, all of which The Presidio Trust rejected earlier this year, saying in a statement "We simply do not believe any of the projects were right for this location."
Spokesman David Perry has described the 95,000-square-foot museum as the “history of storytelling” and the “world’s foremost museum dedicated to the power of the visual image.”
Chicago is home to many museums, both well-known like the Art Institute and the Field Museum, and a bit more odd—say, the International Museum of Surgical Science. But the Lucas museum, which will include film memorabilia as well as works of art from the likes of Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, would be a big get.
San Francisco is still vying for the return of its film Jedi, but we’ll see in one month how Rahm’s empire might strike back.